Alys let out an adorable rumbly yawn as her eyes fluttered open, only finding mine after a lazy moment of looking around the room without really seeing it. My heart ached at the soft, subconscious smile she offered me. It was like seeing me there next to her had already brightened her day.

  Normally, I would have returned the smile. Normally, my dragoness was fine, and nothing baffling was happening to my mana!

  My mind couldn’t stop churning through a whole host of worst-case scenarios. I needed Alys to be safe and sound, or I didn’t know what I would do.

  “Thorn?” Her voice snapped me out of my frozen state, her tone quiet and uncertain now that she had noticed my expression.

  I considered what to tell her for but a moment, then decided being forthright was the best choice.

  “Something is wrong,” I said gently. “You are constantly siphoning some of my mana.” I omitted the strange, mysterious sense that she was siphoning more than just mana. For now, I wanted to stick to facts. “I need you to examine yourself carefully and figure out what you are using my mana for.”

  “I don’t feel like I’m…” She shook her head. “No, I trust you. Hrm. Give me a moment…”

  My dragoness trailed off as she closed her eyes. I instantly felt a tiny bit calmer, having faith that she would figure things out. Though Shaessath complained about both of her descendants giving up on improving their bloodline, I knew Alys had tried, at the very least. That meant she was more in-tune with her body than a typical practitioner of mana.

  So, all I had to do was wait. Then she could tell me nothing was wrong, and —

  Alys’ eyes shot open. The rest of her froze, utterly and totally. She stared at me with something I mistook for abject horror before realizing it was pure, undiluted shock.

  “Alys?”

  She didn’t respond. My heart attempted to tear its way out of my chest.

  “Alys, please talk to me.”

  She did open her mouth, but it fell shut with a click that sounded all too final.

  I grabbed her hand tightly and cast every diagnostic spell I knew as quickly as I could.

  Oddly enough, this was easier to do than it normally was. Her mana, now thoroughly tinged with mine, yielded information almost as easily as my own body’s did. It did not take me long at all to discover the bundle of my mana within her body, which was slowly mixing with hers.

  No, I realized almost immediately. That is no longer my mana.

  Reality slowly registered, but my brain struggled to comprehend it…

  Then my life flipped on its axis. From that moment, I never again felt like the same person. Everything was fundamentally changed. Forever.

  Because Alys was pregnant with our child.

  —

  This is supposed to be impossible.

  At first, that was all I could think. Alys and I had agreed that we wanted children, but also that it wasn’t yet time to have them. So, I had personally brewed potions meant to prevent conception. One for each of us, lasting for a week straight at optimal strength. Just to be safe, we took them every four days.

  Now, because the potions were poison-adjacent, I knew I would develop a resistance to them eventually. But I hadn’t thought it would happen so quickly! And even if my potion had stopped working, Alys’ shouldn’t have, especially when we were taking them ahead of expiry.

  Except, as I plowed through my recent memories, I realized that we had missed our scheduled doses the day before…

  That shouldn’t matter, I argued silently with myself. A single day of difference isn’t supposed to amount to anything.

  Unless, of course, I accounted for the wildly unpredictable effects of feeding Alys refined draconic materials sourced from her very own grandmother. Materials meant to help refine Alys’ bloodline. Materials which, I now realized, might interact oddly with the contraception potions…

  “Alright. Let us not panic.”

  I said this out loud, mostly to help myself thaw from the utterly still position I had locked into. It certainly didn’t stop me from panicking, considering how hard my heart was beating.

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  That seemed to be the case for Alys, too. The look on her face communicated her internally screamed ‘Really?!’ better than anything else could have, other than slapping me.

  “I am pregnant.”

  “I know.”

  We both returned to staring each other in the eye while screaming on the inside, because neither of us was ready to be a parent yet.

  I didn’t know how to be a father! What was I supposed to do? Press my child’s nose into the alchemy station until they learned how to make poison? Cut them off from other children? Ignore them and spend all my time with Alys? Find some random person for them to kill?

  Alys’ parents had certainly done better than mine, but the ruthless panic of a first-time father tore apart that argument in seconds. After all, my dragoness had run away from home, driven by an inferiority complex too large to fit inside The Molten Expanse’s lair!

  “You are right.” Alys’ hands cupped my cheeks gently. “Let’s not panic.”

  I blinked, and I could suddenly see her eyes again, instead of the horrible visions of all the different ways I might accidentally make our child’s life a pit of misery.

  Then my brain finally began functioning well enough for me to comprehend things outside of my own crescendo of panic, and I scooped her up into a hug.

  “I love you. And beyond the desire to run around screaming at the thought of me being a father, I want you to know that I am happy, and that I will love our child with all my heart.”

  I wasn’t lying. Though it was buried under a veritable mountain of other emotions, the fact that we were going to have a child together did fill me with a sort of indelible giddiness, along with a warmth that was gradually beating back the icy chill of fear.

  Alys’ arms latched onto me so hard, I knew they would leave bruises behind.

  “I am terrified I am going to mess this up, Thorn.” The whisper was barely audible, even with her lips so close to my ear.

  “We probably will, at least a little,” I admitted reluctantly, which made her hold on me tighten. “But I’m sure we’ll manage to fix things every time. Besides, between how many things we know not to do, I’m sure we’ll manage.”

  That finally drew a quick laugh out of her. If I felt a few tears land on me, I made no mention of them.

  “I am happy too, you know.” She drew back enough to poke my chest once with a claw out, attempting an annoyed tone. “And then you had to go and say something so sweet and throw my feelings into a jumble. I told you to be careful with that kind of stuff a long time ago!”

  “Yes, but my dragoness is simply too adorable for me to act in any other way,” I whispered, catching her hand and pressing it to my lips.

  A flush played across her scales beautifully. In spite of all the panic, the doubt, and whatever else, we gave into the warmth that radiated between us as we drew closer for a kiss.

  “Hello? I heard you talking up there, so I don’t want to walk in on anything that I shouldn’t see! We just came in to start making breakfast. Actually… please don’t make us hear anything we shouldn’t while we’re down here, either!”

  The singsong voice of Alys’ mother crashed into us like a runaway carriage hitting a poor human peasant, causing the gory bits of a whole new kind of panic to explode between us.

  Alys was pregnant… and we had her entire family downstairs.

  —

  “So… how does draconian pregnancy work, actually?” I asked quietly.

  We were getting dressed too quickly for my liking. I wanted to buy myself a little more time before telling The Molten Expanse I had gotten her granddaughter pregnant.

  “What do you mean, how does it work?”

  “Well, there’s conflicting information about it. Some sources say you lay eggs, and some claim you give live birth to your young. I probably should have asked about this earlier, but I never saw the right moment to bring it up.”

  “Oh… right. Well, it depends on the original dragon ancestor of the draconian line.” Alys sighed, shaking her head ruefully. “A dragon’s shapeshifting offers them a lot of freedom. My grandmother wanted to feel closer to Grandpa, so she stayed in her draconian form and gave birth to my mother.” A small frown claimed her expression. “I don’t think Mom ever forgave Grandmother for ‘saddling her with the messy human way of giving birth’ when I ‘could have been an easily laid egg.’”

  Alys cleared her throat. She looked a little panicked now.

  “I’m sure we’ll be just fine,” I said weakly.

  “You mean you will be just fine.” Seeing the worry plastered over my face, she huffed. “I am joking. Draconians are much tougher than mortal races. If you’ll remember, my mother was up and showing me off to all the kobolds in less than hour.”

  I didn’t know, because no one had clarified that when the story was told, but it did make me feel much better.

  Nonetheless, my mind was awhirl with all the alchemical items I needed to make soon. I still had to concoct those birthing potions for Nelaeryn… Thankfully, Alys was not cursed and more resilient overall, so she wouldn’t need those. The immune system boosting powder I’d made for Nelaeryn was also useless for both Alys and me, because our bodies were far superior to a mortal’s. Now I would have to invent something that could make a draconian healthier.

  The torture juice was exceptional already. We had the flowers I had yet to name, and a few other avenues to help ensure Alys stayed hale and hearty, but it wasn’t enough. She was pregnant!

  I only snapped out of this latest bout of nerves when Alys poked my chest.

  “Stop that. How are you stressing out more than I am?” she whisper-hissed, looking a little insulted that I was managing to pull off such a feat.

  “There is so much I need to experiment with. I will come up with more ways to guarantee you and our child are healthy.”

  My manner made it clear that this was an oath, to both of us. All three of us, rather.

  Alys flushed and lowered her eyes, muttering something under her breath before she looked me in the eye again.

  “Stop. That. I can’t drag you off to bed right now. My entire family is downstairs!”

  She left me no time to respond, or even to process her words properly. The next moment, my hand was in hers, and she was pulling me down the stairs.

  Her parents glanced up briefly and greeted us, but Shaessath focused in on our expressions immediately.

  “What is wrong?”

  “What?” Amara asked, glancing at her mother in confusion.

  Shaessath’s gaze remained fixed on us. “Something is wrong, and you will tell me what has happened.”

  Both Alys and I stopped right there, halfway down the stairs, to exchange a slightly frantic look. Neither of us had come up with a way to break the news gently yet, and Shaessath did not seem like she would wait for us to do so.